Working Paper

Seniority-based layoffs as an incentive device

Abstract: This paper provides a simple economic rationale for two elements that often appear - implicitly or explicitly - in firms' personnel policies. When firms reduce their labor input they often (i) lay off a few individuals rather than adjust work hours, and (ii) make retention decisions on the basis of seniority. We show that in a stochastic environment, a seniority-based layoff policy can have the effect of making the job valuable to a worker over most of her career. This provides work-life incentives using a mechanism similar to Lazear's well known model of upward-sloping wage profiles. Firms reduce their workforce by adjusting employment rather than work hours because layoffs are an integral part the incentive scheme.

Keywords: Labor market;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Part of Series: Working Papers

Publication Date: 1998

Number: 1998-006